Good morning. It is no secret that banks have been forking over penalties to settle allegations of misconduct over recent years. But a new inquiry aims to determine whether banks are actually improving their behavior as a result, the WSJ reports. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, asked banks to provide details of settlements and judgments from the past 10 years involving 15 federal agencies. The inquiry could add fuel to growing criticism by lawmakers and others that such settlements have failed to deter repeated bank misbehavior.

His letter dated Sept. 30 asks for the impact of the settlements, including sanctions paid, personnel or board changes or other compliance fixes that followed, whether any individuals were punished, and whether the bank had sought any waivers from any disqualifications that followed such settlements. The questions touch on issues that recent settlements have raised, including whether certain penalties were largely offset by corresponding tax benefits, or whether the SEC has too readily provided waivers to the disqualifications that banks face when hit with criminal penalties.

CFO JOURNAL TODAY

Earnings growth slowing for private middle-market firms. Earnings growth at private, middle-market companies slowed during the first two months of the third-quarter, Vipal Monga reports. Rising labor costs and a strong U.S. dollar put pressure on margins, according to a report Wednesday by middle-market lender Golub Capital.

Adobe warns forex hedging will get tougher.Volatility in foreign currency markets are making things difficult for Adobe Systems Inc., Emily Chasan reports. CFO Mark Garrett said foreign exchange is likely to cost the company $80 million in the second half of this year and $200 million in 2016.

THE DAY AHEAD

What to watch in Fed minutes. The Federal Reserve left short-term interest rates unchanged at last month’s meeting, citing trepidation about weak growth overseas. The minutes of the policy makers’ discussions, to be released Thursday at 2 p.m. EDT, could reveal more detail on officials’ views on several issues, including when to start lifting rates and how much to worry about global economic and market turbulence.

Alcoa split can’t overcome China pressure. Alcoa Inc.’s rally since announcing it would split in two may stall if third-quarter results reflect a deteriorating upstream business, writes Ahead of the Tape’s Spencer Jakab. The company reports third-quarter results Thursday, and forecasts for the period have dropped to 13 cents a share from 16 cents just since the split was announced.

CORPORATE NEWS

AB InBev went public with an offer on Wednesday to buy SABMiller that would value the London-based brewer at up to $104 billion. SABMiller has rejected the proposal, but the door remains open for a new offer.

Goldman earnings moving to Twitter.Goldman Sachs Group Inc. plans to disseminate its quarterly earnings statement next week through its website and Twitter feed, eschewing the independent business wires. Goldman is putting out its own results to assume more control over potentially market-moving information, a step the firm had considered for some time. Some technology companies, including Twitter Inc., have already cut the cord on distributors such as Business Wire and PR Newswire Association LLC on earnings releases. Goldman’s move, though, follows a raft of criminal indictments that U.S. authorities filed in August against a group of traders and computer hackers alleging they schemed to gain early access to news releases on deals.

Hillary Clinton opposes trans-Pacific trade deal. In a sharp break with the Obama administration’s position, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton came out against a major trade agreement reached earlier in the week by the U.S. and 11 other Pacific nations. She said in a statement that the goal of trade pacts should be to produce new jobs, raise wages and protect national security.

UAW strike averted at Fiat Chrysler. The United Auto Workers reached a new tentative contract agreement with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, averting a strike that would have idled some, if not all, of the auto maker’s U.S. plants.

Dell is in talks to strike merger deal with EMC.Dell Inc. and private-equity firm Silver Lake are in advanced talks to buy EMC Corp., a deal that would rank as the biggest technology-industry takeover ever and remove questions about EMC that have hung over the data-storage giant for more than a year. EMC has been under pressure to boost its stock price since last year, when activist hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. took a roughly 2% stake in the company and urged it to spin off its VMware Inc. unit. A deal with EMC would cement Dell’s transition from a consumer-facing company to one focused on technology for big companies.

Mini-oil sites overcome slump in crude prices. At a time when slumping crude-oil prices have shelved most new oil-sands projects, pint-size sites are proliferating. That is due to advances in modular construction, ample rail and pipeline takeaway capacity and an attractive regulatory environment.

Partial verdict in Dewey law case. A jury came to a partial verdict in the trial of three former Dewey & LeBoeuf executives, finding each not guilty of falsifying business records, but said it was still deadlocked on more than 100 remaining charges.

Sony moves toward sale of music-publishing unit.Sony Corp. is moving closer to selling off its half of Sony/ATV Music Publishing after recently triggering a clause in its contract with its co-owner, the Michael Jackson estate, that allows one party to buy out the other. The potential sale of its stake could help Sony raise cash following a multiyear restructuring aimed at shrinking its dependence on its beleaguered consumer-electronics businesses.

Gannett reaches deal to buy Journal Media. USA Today owner Gannett Co. has agreed to buy Journal Media Group, owner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other newspapers, in a sign a long-awaited round of consolidation may be under way.

U.S. targets Chinese groups in cyber feud. U.S. authorities say three state-owned Chinese firms benefited from trade secrets stolen in a Chinese military hack on U.S. companies, the Financial Times reports. The alleged beneficiaries of the purloined data are Chinalco, the biggest aluminum company in China, steelmaker Baosteel, and nuclear-power firm SNPTC.

Chinese tech startups close in on deal.Meituan.com and Dianping Holdings Ltd. are nearing a merger that would create the country’s biggest online-to-offline provider of services ranging from movie tickets to restaurant bookings. A deal would bring together two competitors backed separately by Chinese Internet giants Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd.

Oil CEOs differ on carbon strategy.The CEOs of Royal Dutch Shell PLC and ExxonMobil Corp. laid out contrasting visions for cutting fossil-fuel emissions, illustrating a divide between U.S. and European energy companies before a U.N. climate-change summit.

Touted shopping site Jet.com abandons membership fee.Jet.com Inc. is already abandoning the main business model behind its new discount-shopping site, a surprising turnabout for what many viewed as the most promising challenge to Amazon.com Inc. in years. Jet had insisted the fee would be its sole source of profit, and that it planned to keep prices low by subsidizing them with the sales commissions it collected from the site’s merchants.

Pandora to buy Ticketfly for $450 million. Internet radio service Pandora Media Inc. has agreed to acquire ticket seller Ticketfly Inc. in a deal valued at $450 million. Ticketfly provides ticketing and marketing software for about 1,200 North American venues and event promoters.

Payouts, risks grow for CIOs. Chief information officers are earning more money than ever, a sign of demand for people with a proven ability to bring in new revenue through the use of data. But the CEO and board are expecting more in return. In a departure from traditional IT compensation measures, many corporate technology leaders also are being held to the same financial metrics as CEOs.

FanDuel, DraftKings ban employees from playing.FanDuel Inc. and DraftKings Inc., two of the biggest daily fantasy-sports sites in the U.S., said they are permanently banning employees from playing in daily fantasy contests for money. The moves Wednesday came as the billion-dollar startups, which are largely unregulated, faced scrutiny over how much internal data employees have access to, and whether that data can help them win as contestants on other daily fantasy sites.

REGULATION

Small firms worry as big-data pact dies. Smaller companies face uncertain prospects after the European Union’s highest court struck down the agreement that allowed U.S. businesses to transfer Europeans’ personal information to the U.S. Some executives fear they must renegotiate contracts with their clients or relocate database servers. Others are struggling to parse whether they even have data on European citizens, who aren’t required to specify their citizenship when they sign up for many apps.

Blackstone in $39 million SEC settlement.Blackstone Group LP has agreed to pay about $39 million to settle charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission over some of the buyout fund manager’s fee practices. The SEC said firm failed to sufficiently disclose to its fund investors details about big one-time fees Blackstone collected from companies it sold or took public, as well as discounts the firm received on some legal fees that weren’t passed on to the fund investors.

Clinton proposes Wall Street curbs. Democrat Hillary Clinton is moving closer to the populist wing of her party with a suite of proposals aimed at curbing some Wall Street risk-taking and holding more individuals accountable for misconduct. Among her proposals: a tax on certain rapid-fire stock traders, whom some see as contributing to market instability. She also wants to extend the statute of limitations for prosecuting financial crimes and require that responsible individuals pay a portion of fines levied because of wrongdoing at their companies.

Harvard, Goldman, venture capital…fugitive. On the surface, Iftikar Ahmed appeared to be an immigrant success story. But prosecutors and regulators allege that he stole $65 million through a series of frauds over a decade.

Samsung expects earnings rebound powered by chips.Samsung Electronics Co.’s upbeat third-quarter guidance highlights how its components arm has become a key driver of growth, but even that business faces headwinds as the global supply of chips appears set to outpace demand. Research firm Gartner earlier this year cut its growth projection for global chip sales to 2.2% from 4%, citing a weaker outlook for major applications that drive the semiconductor market, including smartphones, and tablets.

ECONOMY

China’s central bank has been selling dollars to buoy its currency.

Wu Hong/European Pressphoto Agency

Once the biggest buyer, China starts dumping U.S. government debt.Central banks are selling U.S. government bonds at the fastest pace on record, the most dramatic shift in the $12.8 trillion Treasury market since the financial crisis. Sales by China, Russia, Brazil and Taiwan are the latest sign of an emerging-markets slowdown that is threatening to spill over into the U.S. economy. Previously, all four were large purchasers of U.S. debt.

$50 oil: So close, yet oh so far. Oil prices pulled back from a one-month high on Wednesday, as yet another rally fizzled on a muddled supply outlook. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that Americans are enjoying the benefits of cheap oil, suggesting a rise in prices could hit consumer spending.

Abenomics—it isn’t a bust. Though Japan’s economy has encountered headwinds, Abenomics is making more progress than appreciated, Greg Ip writes. Yet that success is fragile, and Japanese leaders have more work ahead to entrench its achievements.

Will the Bank of England ever raise rates? The U.K. economy is losing its fizz and it might be a while before it gets going enough to spark inflation, Bloomberg reports. A report this week showed services grew at the weakest pace in more than two years, signaling a slowing economy that underlines the case for holding the key rate at a record low.

CFO MOVES

Nokia Corp. on Wednesday detailed management and organizational plans for the group as it prepares for the completion of its $17.6 billion acquisition of French rival Alcatel-Lucent SA. According to a WSJ report, Nokia’s chief financial officer, Timo Ihamuotila, will remain in his position and serve as CFO of the combined group. Samih Elhage, currently CFO and operating chief of Nokia Networks, will become president of Mobile Networks.

Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc., a Chicago-based health-care technology company, promoted its finance chief, Rick Poulton, to president. Mr. Poulton will be responsible for day-to-day operations and will continue to report to Chief Executive Paul Black. Allscripts said it is searching for a new CFO, and Mr. Poulton will retain those duties until a new finance chief is named. Mr. Poulton will receive a salary increase to $600,000 from $465,000, with a bonus targeted at that amount, and he will receive equity awards valued at $500,000, according to a regulatory filing.

Ten Alps PLC, a London-based media group, said CFO Nitil Patel has resigned. A search for a replacement is under way, and Mr. Patel will remain with the company to assist with the transition, the company said.

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